The owner of a longtime Downtown advertising and marketing agency says problems related to the homeless population are compelling him to relocate the agency.
During the Sept. 10 City Council meeting, Jim Dalton said employees and clients of the agency were encountering homeless individuals “virtually every single day,” including people sleeping in the agency’s entrance and defecating in front of the building.
Dalton’s Jacksonville headquarters are at 140 W. Monroe St. on the south side of James Weldon Johnson Park.
Citing other businesses that have left Downtown, Dalton said “we feel forced to move as well.”
He said the agency had been graffitied and that windows had been damaged by gunshots.
Dalton was speaking to legislation, Ordinance 2024-0687, that would prohibit public urination and defecation and ban unauthorized public camping at any time within the city.
The ordinance summary says it brings the city into compliance with the state law starting Oct. 1 that bans unauthorized camping and sleeping on public property.
The item was before Council for a public hearing and no action was taken.
Formerly called the Dalton Agency, the firm changed its name to Dalton in 2022. Jim Dalton founded it in 1989.
The Daily Record reported in 2022 the agency had grown to nearly 100 employees at that time who work with local, national and international clients in offices in Jacksonville, Atlanta and Nashville, Tennessee.
The story also reported that through DMJ LLC, Jim Dalton and Michael Munz, a business development and management executive for the agency, sold the Monroe Street building to GNP Development Partners LLC, a real estate development firm. The two-story, 30,096-square-foot building sold for $5.3 million.
Dalton said he and the agency’s leadership had “deep empathy for people with mental illness or going through difficult times,” but urged Council to take action.
Brendan Cumiskey, president of Dalton, told Council members that the agency’s female staff members had been called “very derogatory names” while walking to and from the building to Dalton’s spaces in a parking garage two blocks away. He said they were fearful of walking Downtown after work during winter months with early sunsets.
Cumiskey said that when Dalton was trying to land a contract with a publicly traded Fortune 500 company, he opted to hold a site meeting in the Nashville office to avoid making a poor impression in Jacksonville. He said Dalton spent thousands of dollars to fly its employees to Tennessee.